


Orange

by OverwatchingYouSleep



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Hayseed!Junkrat - Freeform, Horror, Non-shippy (yet?), Southern Goth, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 09:48:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12106065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OverwatchingYouSleep/pseuds/OverwatchingYouSleep
Summary: "Scarecrow Junkrat trying to beckons his S/O into the cornfields?"Non-shippy, just a lil horrorfic I got suddenly inspired to do. Might continue depending on motivation.





	Orange

**Author's Note:**

> We do lots more work like this @overwatching-you-sleep.tumblr.com

You hated walking to work. It was always there.

The long dirt path was the only way you could travel the distance from the gas station you worked to your home, both of which resided in the south-western portion of nowhere. Every weekday you made the hour-long trek to work, stuck between two massive walls of untended corn on either side of you. And, of course, the scarecrow.

Whenever you travel this beaten path, he would walk beside you. You thought it was human, at least at first. Maybe a prankster; A plain creep. However, it became quickly apparent through his too-thin limbs and gangly stature that this creature was a cheap imitation of a human being. You stopped calling out to him when he wouldn’t respond. You stopped trying to interact with it at all.

The more you stared at his silhouette, the more you realized his sack hood seemed to be filled with some material other than muscle and bone. His torso seemed human enough, but littered with scars that didn’t look healthy in the least bit. If this was a man he was a monster, and if he wasn’t, he was a walking nightmare.

The most unsettling thing about him were his eyes. Glass tubes, a fluorescent orange that glowed with no discernable source. They followed your every move as you walked beside him. They moved on their own, further disproving your theory of a elaborate costume, and always seemed to stay steady despite how he twitched. This scared you more than anything else about him.

You had no solution. There was nothing you could do and no other way you could travel. You knew nobody would believe you if you told them your tale. You’d already tried, and whenever you managed to convince someone to pick you up, he was never there. You looked like a lunatic. Helpless to prove yourself, you were left to your own terror.

Your only solace was in the fact that he never seemed to leave the corn. He would walk alongside you, matching your brisk pace, but he’d never get closer or approach you directly. From that distance, you could almost ignore him if you just looked forward. That 10-foot gap was the only comfort you had.

Yet, you weren’t sure when that would change. He certainly had interest in you, and if he wasn’t leaving you alone, something was bound to happen eventually. Maybe even if you weren’t so stupid as to step foot into that cornfield. You didn’t want to be around when that happened. Ignoring him wasn’t going to work forever.

Unfortunately, your crappy job didn’t allow you to save much, making moving away an impossibility. You were scrounging together for a car from what little you saved over from your paycheck each week, but it was practically nothing. You were trapped with nobody to believe you and nobody for miles around who can save you, should that invisible barrier between the field and the road ever fall.

~~~

Was he walking closer today? The presence of him was a bit stronger, the sound of his footsteps is a tad louder in your ears. You didn’t want to stare directly at him, terrified it would destroy your carefully constructed barrier of denial. Yet when you listened, you could hear words muttered beneath his wheezy breath, far too indistinct to make out.

You were getting a little too paranoid to wait.

You sped up, attempting to somehow close this hour long distance in a minute. You were aware that all you were doing was tiring yourself out faster. After all, you could hear the punch of his peg leg against the hard dirt just beside you. He was matching your pace easily.

As always, the narrow fields opening up to flat grass is like the gates of paradise. Your work was just around the corner, your respite away from this hell road. It was the only reason you were happy to see it. Your lungs felt ready to burst from your jog.

When your foot moved from dirt to gravel, your shadow finally tails off.. You turned back in time to see him disappear once again into the field, likely awaiting your return to stalk you all the way back to your home. You had never actually seen him walking around at night, but you felt his eyes on you every minute, without fail. He was out there, always, without fail.

You shook off the feeling of bugs crawling on your skin, and turn back to the road completing the remaining 2 minutes to your work.

For a gas station, seeing cars out front doesn’t surprise you. The placement of this one, on the other hand, caught your eye. It was ugly, a rusty white buick that was obviously on its last legs. You wondered if the thing even worked. Though, to be fair to it, it looked in place in front of an old derelict gas station like this one. You must have been staring longer than you thought because your co-worker called out to you.

“ She runs, if that’s what you’re wondering,” he told you, exhaling a large puff of cigarette smoke. You turned around to face him, trying not to seem too interested.

“ Are you selling it?” you asked. He nodded and gestured towards the car with a nod of his head.

“ 800 dollars. A steal really. I just need the money.” Your heart nearly stopped. You had just about that much money in your savings. You tried to stop yourself; A car was not a thing to impulse buy. Yet one more look at the beatdown thing, knowing that it worked, you were standing in front of your ATM before you knew it.

“ You sure about this?” Your coworker asked, watching you pull money with just the slightest bit of concern. “ Sure you don’t want to consult nobody?”

“ I need a car that works,” you told him, plugging your card in to repeat another transaction. You met his eyes, and you briefly considered that you might look crazy. Briefly. “If yours works, then I want it.”

“…This isn’t about that scarecrow thing, is–”

“Greg.” The finality in your voice shut him up. He shook his head and let his thoughts trail off in his own head. After a wad of twenties was exchanged between hands, you were the owner of a rusty jalopy and it’s matching key.

“ I guess if you’re that eager, you won’t run off when I tell you what’s wrong with it.” he scratched the back of his head and make a twirling gesture with his finger. “Tires need to be replaced, brakes are a little touchy, obviously needs some more paint, brake lights are shot, roof needs to be patched, and– well I’m sure the mechanic will tell you everything else when you bring it to him.”

With that reassuring sign off and a pat on the shoulder, your coworker walk back to his station in the deli, leaving you with the key in your hand. Your doubts start to catch up with you and you wonder if it does truly run like he claims it does. You doubt he would lie to you, but just how many more miles does that thing have left in it?

However, delirium didn’t reason like that. By the time you closed the station that night, you were ready to fire it up and drive. You barely even paused to rip the price sticker out of the window before pulling yourself into the driver’s seat and closing the door. A two-ton cage of steel protecting your body, travelling at 40 miles per hour. You might as well have been in a tank for how protected you felt.

You turned the key in the ignition and placed your hands on the wheel. The feeling of the old car sputtering to life eased your pounding heart to a dull purr, just like the engine. He had never shown up when you were in a car. Even if this car only lasted you a month, it would still be worth the freedom from his terrible gaze. Maybe he’d lose interest.

You didn’t move for a long time, simply cherishing the armor you now had. You didn’t need anyone else to believe you. Not when you had your own defense. You tore off into the night, swinging around the corner and down the dirt path that had become your hell. The gas gauge read half-full, and save for its appearance both inside and out, it ran well enough.

Today was your lucky day.

What was normally an hour long walk would be bypassed in minutes on your new wheels. The corn was breezing past, and with no sign of your tormentor. You didn’t expect to see him; he hid better at night. How he hid the bright glow where you couldn’t see, you’d never understand.

You hoped he saw you now. Saw that you could outpace him, that he was no match for you now that you were protected. You wanted him to know that you would no longer be his victim, allowing him to stalk you every time you walk past. You wouldn’t have it anymore. You felt invincible.

You were about half-way through the field when the engine started to choke. The sound of gears clacking against each other overwhelmed everything, even the pounding of blood in your ears. You went to press your foot to the break but paused, realizing where you were. If you could just push it for another minute, maybe you could pull over outside of the corn where he wouldn’t be able to get you.

You realized, as your foot tilted back towards the accelerator, that your fear it may have been irrational. You had never seen him at the night. Yet still, just the chill of the night air was enough to rattle your bones, and if you turned off your car and weren’t able to get it back on again, you’d be trapped out here, which wouldn’t ease your paranoia any.

Anxious to remove yourself from the situation as fast as possible, you pressed down on the gas. The clanking grew louder, making sweat bead on your forehead. The car jolted, nearly throwing you out of your seat and nearly choking you on your seatbelt. Then, exactly as you feared, the engine roared to a halt.

“Oh, shit. Come on. come on. Come on!” You turn the key in the ignition rapidly but nothing caught. You watch helplessly as your car begins to roll to a gradual stop, the speed meter slowly ticking closer to 0. “Runs fine” your ass. You were going to bitch your coworker out the next time you saw him.

You looked up, watching your headlights flicker. You knew opening your door would turn them off, and you needed the light. You were ready to start rolling the window down when you noticed lights flickering in the distance.

You squinted, one hand on the wheel and the other on your door handle. You realized too late how familiar that fluorescent orange was until his gangly silhouette was slowly revealed by your approaching headlights.

He was standing in the middle of the road. You pressed yourself as far back into the seat as you could, nearly breaking it in the process, but nothing stopped the car from getting closer. Not until the speedometer hit a solid zero, your bumper coming to a halt inches from his legs.

He was terrifyingly huge up close. You had never realized how tall he was when he was at a distance. Or how great that distance was, for that matter. You were frozen in place, staring at him and waiting for something to happen. He seemed to be doing the same.

Then, without warning, your headlights cut out, drowning you in black. Your fingers clenched on the door handle but didn’t move. You were blind, unable to see anything save for his glowing eyes. You were waiting for them to do something, anything besides stare at you.

All was still for a long while, long enough for your chest to hurt from your pounding heart, for your eyes to become adjusted to the dark just enough to see his form. Slowly he slouched over, falling to a height you were more familiar with seeing, and the eyes slowly bobbed back and forth, circling around the car to the drivers side.

Panic seized your lungs again, and the drum in your heart began to beat anew. You ripped your seatbelt off, prying your fingers beneath the center console and ripping it up. You had dived half-way across the seat when a tiny knock stopped you in your tracks. You glanced over your shoulder, and his face was pressed against the windows, eyes sunken back into his sack head.

He said nothing, merely made a little twirling motion with his finger. _Roll the window down._

Fat fucking chance. You reached out and grabbed the handle of the passenger door, hauling yourself to the other side of the car. The window shattered behind you, and you felt fingers swipe through your hair once before you threw the door open and rolled out. The car shifted behind you, glass crackling and hitting the ground as the creature thrashed and roared.

You pulled yourself to your feet and ran. The road no longer felt safe; now that you knew he could travel it after all. Now it was just open ground, able to be spotted from a mile away. Ignoring your every survival instinct cultivated from months of this psychological torture, you burst through the first row of corn and began to cross through.

Your lungs were already pulsing, so they were downright burning after moments of running. Yet every time you even tried to slow down, you’d hear the sound of wood hitting dirt and redouble your efforts, hand clenching the massive cramp in your abdomen. The corn gave way to dry grass, but you didn’t slow any, continuing on even as the ground began a slow incline.

The hill crested almost suddenly, the drop so steep it practically disappeared from under you. You lost your footing and tumbled forward, hitting the dirt on your right arm and flying down the hill so fast you felt like you were going to be sick. Twigs and rocked scraped your skin as you passed, but nothing so major as the ankle you twisted on an errant root, rendering your left leg useless.

You hit the bottom of the hill with a grunt, all of the air forced out of your lungs. You were a mess. You cracked your eyes open through the thin layer of dirt that had accumulated over your skin and blinked out the tears that welled in the corners. You had a feeling that the only reason nothing hurt is because your body hadn’t yet had time to process how much you hurt.

Your surroundings were still dark, but recognizable, nothing but grass and dead bushes as far as you could see. A shadow loomed over you, but when you looked up, you were shocked to find it wasn’t the scarecrow, but a massive wooden post staked down in the dirt just past your head. The crucifix-esque pattern sent a bolt of fear through you, which awakened your nerves to your budding pain.

“Home sweet home.” You wanted to crawl away from the voice, recognizing it instantly as sinister and inhuman, but your body wouldn’t move. You could only bring your eyes to stare at his looming silhouette, what looked like nails clenched between the fingers of one hand and a coil of rope in the other.

“Hold still.”


End file.
